


Dragon's Ire More Fierce Than Fire

by afterandalasia



Series: OTW Chat Trope Bingo 2016 [3]
Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Battle, Dragons, Evie (Disney) Has Magic, F/F, Feudal Lord/Handmaiden, Gender Related, Hurt/Comfort, Knights - Freeform, Loyalty, Magic Users, OTW Trope Bingo, Politics, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8149996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: Sixteenth birthdays are supposed to be portentous, of course, but Mal does not realise just what repercussions hers will have. A girl offered to her as a handmaiden, who becomes a confidante, a friend, and eventually a source of bravery which she did not even know that she lacked.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who did not come across the Feudal Lord/Handmaiden meme, it started on tumblr when somebody compared a femslash pairing to a 'feudal lord and handmaiden' in what was probably an attempt to say that they were butch and femme. The phrase quickly outgrew their meta and became a joke in femslash fandom, with some great memes and art. I've written fic for this trope before, but either it really tickled me or I can't let a joke drop; I'll leave it to you to decide.
> 
> For my OTW Chat Trope Bingo square "au: royalty/aristocracy/feudal". I'd blame the inclusion of the word feudal, but I know that I have no-one to blame but myself.
> 
> Title is from "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" from Tolkien's _The Hobbit_. The name "Erthal" is taken from the name of "Maria Sophia von Erthal", an eighteenth-century figure believed by some to be the origin of the Snow White story.
> 
>  **Graphic Violence** warning is for an extended battle scene in chapter four.

Perhaps fittingly, it was the day of Mal’s sixteenth birthday when the Erthal Kingdom fell. Her mother received the news from one of her ravens with delight, and promised Mal that the revels they had planned that evening would be just the beginning of her birthday gifts.

It was almost a month later when the first gifts of tribute from Erthal arrived. Maleficent received them in her throne room, resplendent in her black robes, and smiled like a viper as the list was read out. Queen Grimhilde was imprisoned in her own dungeons waiting Lord Maleficent’s presence, they said.

Then Maleficent waved her daughter over. Mal approached cautiously, both from the still-unfamiliar weight of her new parade armour and because her mother was particularly unpredictable when her moods were good. Maleficent did not seem to notice, however, and merely watched as two of their guards marched forwards a young woman, dressed in a fine navy gown that was now tattered and muddy, her blue hair lank about her cheeks. She looked scared, but not terrified; Mal had learnt to distinguish between those two states many years ago.

The girl was, however, still standing. “Kneel,” said Mal, sharply. “You stand before Maleficent, Lord of All Evil.”

With a hurried glance around her, the girl knelt. The movement was a little stiff, but it did not seem to daunt her.

Mal wondered who she was. A hostage, maybe; she looked as if she came from a rich family. Or just a captive. That, at least, would explain her mother’s delighted expression.

“Very good,” said Maleficent.

She got to her feet, and Mal could not help feeling the faintest pang of resentment. Standing on the dais alone, their guards and footmen well back, she knew that she looked tall and resplendent in her armour. But as soon as Maleficent stood as well, she was left feeling small.

“Mal, I told you that your birthday gift would be delayed.” With a sweep of her hand, Maleficent took in the kneeling girl. “I present to you your new handmaiden, the former princess Evie of Erthal.”

Mal almost questioned it. Mercifully, she caught herself in time; no-one  _ ever _ questioned Maleficent, least of all publicly. As it was, she could not help looking at her mother in astonishment. A handmaiden? What did she think Mal was - some soft princess, instead of the feudal lord she had taken such pains to raise? She had her squire and her errand boy; what did she need a handmaiden for?

But she saw the exact moment that her mother’s eyes turned cold, and the smile lost its truth. Forcing a smile onto her own face, Mal tilted her chin up. “I am honoured by such a gift. Guards,” she gave them with flick of her hand, “take her to my chambers and await me there.”

“Oh, go now,” said Maleficent, with her own almost irritable gesture. Even Mal could not maintain her smile at the dismissal. “Deal with her.”

There was no arguing with Maleficent. Mal bowed from the waist, careful of how her armour shifted. “Of course, my Lord.”

  
  
  
  
  


The girl did not speak as she was escorted to Mal’s chambers, though Mal was very aware of the footfalls just behind her as she led the way. Once they were in her room, she dismissed the guards and turned to face the girl, eyeing her critically.

“Evie of Erthal,” she said.

“Yes,” the girl replied. Mal arched an eyebrow. “I mean - yes, my Lord.”

“Do you know how to care for armour, Evie? Or assist me in donning or removing it.”

Her hands, still bound together at the wrists, clenched into fists. “No, my Lord.”

“Well, I have my squire for that. Can you read and write?”

“Yes, my Lord. In three languages,” Evie offered, and for the first time, Mal saw a glimmer of potential. Though Mal herself was skilled in communicating with animals, as had her mother been, human languages bored her.

“And what of magic? Do you have any? Your mother was Grimhilde, I imagine she was teaching you.”

Embarrassment, almost pain, flashed in Evie’s eyes as she flinched. “I - no,” she said. “I know the ingredients and the spells, though, and I can prepare potions up to the stage that they need magical intervention. But,” her voice slowly shrank, “I don’t have magic.”

It seemed almost preposterous, that a daughter of  _ Queen Grimhilde _ of all people would not have magic ability. Mal frowned, and looked the girl over more closely, searching for a resemblence to the portraits of Grimhilde that she had seen. The Queen was said to be a beauty, and certainly Evie had good looks, with clear dark eyes and cupid’s bow-lips.

Mal clicked her fingers, and a rush of green light sparked on Evie’s scalp and ran down to the tips of her hair. Evie gasped, grabbing at it, then looking in confusion at the neat, clean waves that remained. With another wave of her hand, Mal sent her magic rolling down over Evie’s clothing; the mud wisped away into dust on the air, and the tatters healed themselves together to reveal a very well-made dress of navy velvet and lace, immaculately cut and shaped.

She looked Evie over a second time. Now, at least, she could see the royalty there.

“So, what are your other talents?” she said. She would sit at her desk, but her new armour did not allow her the insolent lounge that she usually favoured, and her sword would get in the way. Her lips quirked. “Do you cook? Clean?”

“Yes, and yes,” said Evie, taking Mal entirely by surprise. “I also sew,” she waved to her own dress, which Mal could only presume meant that she had  _ made _ it, when Mal had written it off as the work of a castle seamstress, “and I’m very good at dancing. My mother made certain of it.”

Mal had been ready to dismiss the words, even to laugh at them. But there was something in the timbre of Evie’s voice when she spoke of her mother, a hint of fear and anger and something else that Mal could not quite read, which caught Mal off-guard. Curiosity sparked in her chest. She knew that she could demand an explanation, of course, but restrained herself from doing so. Evie had been through a lot over the last month, she had no doubt.

And, of course, it was not relevant at this time. She squashed down the urge to sympathise with her new handmaiden, and set about undoing her swordbelt for something to occupy her hands and eyes. “Well, I doubt I’ll have much need for dancing,” she said crisply. “But the cleaning should come in handy. Do you know how to remove blood from fabric?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.” That was not among Jay’s skills, and he tended to complain whenever Mal got blood on her gambeson. “I shall see about having a bed made up for you.”

  
  
  
  
  


That night, she could not sleep, kept too awake by the extra presence in her room. She had kept Evie busy by setting her to go through her clothes and set aside anything that needed cleaning or similar. Repeated use of magic tended to damage clothes, and it was too much of a drain to use for everyday things. Eventually, sick of standing, she summoned Jay to help her remove her armour, and rolled her eyes as he flirted with Evie and she looked shocked at the nerve of it. Eventually, she had needed to tell him to knock it off, and had sent him away to thoroughly clean her armour even though she knew it was already gleaming.

Come night, though, she could not ignore the presence in the room, the sound of another person’s breathing. She thought that she caught the sound of Evie trying not to cry, and even though it should have made her roll her eyes at the sentiment, it instead kept her awake with her heart churning in her chest.

She scowled at the darkness before finally coming to a decision.

“Evie,” she said. Her voice rang in the quiet room, and she heard Evie immediately hold her breath, counted the heartbeats that the silence stretched out.

“Yes, my Lord?” said Evie finally.

Mal fidgeted beneath her sheets. “The bed is cold.”

“I…” Evie hesitated, then Mal heard her sit up, blankets shifting aside. On short notice, she had only been able to acquire a small, hard cot. “I will fetch a warming pan, my Lord.”

Mal hardened her resolve. “No,” she said. “That - that will take too long. Lie on the other side of the bed yourself. That will warm it faster.”

There was a long hesitation, then Mal saw shifting shadows as Evie got to her feet. The former-princess groped her way to the bed, blinded in the darkness which Mal’s fae vision allowed her to pierce. She sat down on the bed, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and carefully climbed beneath the sheets in turn. A shiver ran through her, even though the bed was not really that cold.

Mal almost thanked her, then remembered that Lords were not supposed to thank their handmaidens. “Very good,” she said instead.

“Thank you,” Evie murmured, and without the title it somehow cut more directly through Mal’s chest.


	2. Chapter 2

Evie turned out to be more skilled than Mal had anticipated, and more useful. When Maleficent went to Erthal Castle, to deal with Grimhilde, she left Mal in charge of her Keep but expected regular updates. With Evie to write the messages for the ravens to carry back, Mal suddenly found herself with a lot more time on her hands, time that she could put to better use balancing the demands and politics of the lesser lords and vassals of their lands.

True to her word, she was also skilled in the preparation of potion ingredients, even calmly and competently cutting open frogs to retrieve their delicate venom sacs for the powerful truth serums that Mal needed for a suspected spy captured by some of her soldiers. She even had the delicacy of touch needed to extract the individual threads of spider silk needed to conjure up the magical webs that were used to prevent mirrors within their castle from letting in external enchantments.

As they worked, they talked. Never about anything too important - Evie spoke about clothes and how she learnt to make them, and Mal talked about the weapons which she had been taught to use, and the first time she had ever tamed a kelpie to ride. Evie talked about the potions books in her mother’s library, and Mal had her add a note to one of the messages to Maleficent to see to it that as many as possible were brought back to the Keep. They sounded interesting. In return, she talked about the kingdoms that now formed their growing empire, when each one had been obtained.

“And now my mother’s,” said Evie, her hands stilling for a moment on her pestle and mortar.

Mal fell silent. She had not thought of that. “It isn’t burnt to the ground,” she said. “We don’t raze land. My mother will appoint someone as ruler.” She continued weaving her magic around the black cauldron over which they worked; the flames wreathed blue and purple around it. “I’m starting to have a say in that. One day, you could still rule it. Only you get our support, instead of trying to fight us.”

The smile on Evie’s face was rather wan. “I’m not sure I would have ruled it, with my mother. She was working on immortality.”

“Hard to achieve, if you aren’t fae,” said Mal casually.

“She thought that it wasn’t impossible.” For a moment, Evie’s voice sounded older, and her eyes were sad again, then she shook her head and gave Mal a beaming smile. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll find someone in her books. I’m not sure that even she’d read them all.”

“I’ll show you the Keep library,” Mal said, decisively. “Next time I have to attend to the Council. I think you’ll like it there.”

  
  
  
  
  


Evie clutched at the wall, and stared in awe at the huge library unfolding in front of her. Maleficent had collected magical tomes for hundreds of years, from dozens of lands, and there were more languages represented among them than Mal had known existed.

“The Library is sealed with faerie magic,” said Mal. It did not seem to break Evie from her daze, as she crossed to the first set of shelves and ran one delicate fingertip over a book’s spine as if afraid that it would break. “Only my mother and I, or those who bear our tokens, can enter.”

“Oh.” Evie’s face fell. “Can I remove the books from here, then? I’ll be careful with them.”

But Mal smiled, and held up one hand. In a ripple of magic, a pendant materialised there, a ruby apple on a golden chain. She sauntered over, and when Evie caught sight of it her eyes went wide.

“That’s…”

Mal nodded. “It was among the tribute seized. You said something about it, one day or another. I thought it would be fitting.” Undoing the clasp, she held it up, and looked pointedly until Evie realised what was meant and turned around. Only when Evie had scooped up her blue hair did Mal reach around her neck to settle the pendant into place. “I have sealed a drop of blood into the ruby. The doors will open for it.”

“Thank you.” Evie turned, letting her hair tumble back down again, and Mal would have kept smiling were it not for the tears in her eyes. “You don’t know how much this means. I-”

Discomfort crawled along Mal’s skin; she did not know how to handle displays of emotion like this, had been told all her life that it was weak to show them. “You have proved yourself very competent,” she said crisply. 

And Evie had, from taking care of Mal’s clothes to writing the messages to keeping her - their - room more clean and tidy than Mal had ever managed. She had even taken to wearing the simpler clothes of a handmaiden without argument, though she had altered them to make them fit better. They looked elegant on her, somehow. After all that she had proven herself capable of doing, it had only seemed appropriate to give her some recognition, and that had been what the library was. 

The pendant, well, that might have been a gift. But it had not been meant like  _ that _ .

Mal told herself that it was nothing to do with sentiment, and managed to be almost cool to Evie for all of a week. At the end of that time, however, her mother returned, triumphant with the news that she had bought Queen Grimhilde back for more permanent imprisonment. She had banned Evie from seeing her mother before Evie could even ask, and once again Evie ended up crying in the night. Mal had no idea what she could do, but come the morning she found herself being more gentle with Evie once again.

Carlos had been with her mother’s retinue, much to Mal’s annoyance as she was forced to ask Jay or Evie to run even the simplest of errands, but returned relieved to be back and took an immediate shine to Evie. She first met him when he was bringing a bucket of bat guano to Mal’s potions chambers, which was perhaps not the most auspicious of starts, but before long Mal was not wholly surprised to see that they were friends, sharing pastries that Evie managed to flirt from the cooks, and working together with their feet bare and their sleeves rolled up to catch frogs that Mal needed for another spell.

Jay, on the other hand, flirted consistently, and Mal knew that Evie was becoming more settled in her life when Evie began to flirt back and caught Jay entirely off-guard in doing so. Dark eyes, parted lips, hair twined between her fingers; Mal could see why it was so successful. Even Jay blushed in the force of it.

“So, I see you finally got Jay back,” she said, when Evie returned to Mal’s chamber with a message in her hand. Evie looked confused for a moment, then at the window, and must have realised that it overlooked the courtyard as she coloured and stammered. Mal grinned. “Don’t worry. Though you should be aware his tastes don’t run to you or me.”

She raised an eyebrow, and watched as her meaning sunk in and Evie’s eyes went wide. She put the message on the table between them. “Oh. Oh! You mean…”

Mal nodded. She scooped up the message, and grabbed the letter opener from her desk to rip it open. Sitting back in her chair, she set her boots on the edge of the desk, only for Evie to tap her shins pointedly. She rolled her eyes, but put her feet down again. But only because Evie’s concern was about the  _ wood _ , and not some silly objection about how lordly it might look.

“His father wouldn’t accept it,” said Mal. Her eyes scanned the message; it was nothing that she had not anticipated. It had been her suspicions, after all, which had sent her spy on his current direction of enquiry. “That, among other things, is why he’s happier working for me.”

“You - don’t mind it?”

“I worry about how clean he gets my armour, how sharp he keeps my sword, and how well he treats my horse,” said Mal. She let fire lick up from her fingertips to consume the letter, rather than leave it unattended for even a moment. “Other than that, no. Why, do you?”

Evie blinked, as if she had never thought about such a question before. “Well, it’s not really… any of our business, is it?”

“I am a Lord. My servants are my business,” said Mal immediately. Evie blushed again.

“Of course. I mean… none of my business.”

“At least it means you don’t have to worry about him being handsy.” Mal blew the last fragments of ash off her fingertips. “Unlike some stableboys I could mention. Now.” She pushed to her feet. “I need to speak to my mother about some news from a friend of ours in Auradon. There’s some interesting rumours afoot about their young Prince.”

  
  
  
  
  


It was perhaps six months after Evie had become Mal’s handmaiden when she fell ill. It crept up on her over a couple of days, and Mal saw the pallour of her skin and the shake of her hands but said nothing, trusting Evie to speak up if she was in any real trouble. Apparently that was the wrong decision, because Mal woke with the dawn one morning to find Evie feverish and shivering in the bed beside her, cheeks fever-bright and skin burning dry.

She demanded the best of their healers, and sent Ruby and Anxelin fleeing from her chambers when they tried and failed to use Ruby’s hair to do something about it. Instead, she set about tending to Evie herself, keeping cool compresses on her head and giving her sips of sweetened water as often as possible, magicking cool into the fabric of her nightclothes no matter that it drained magic from her bones.

After two days, without sleep and with barely having left Evie’s side, the fever finally broke. Sweat streamed down Evie’s skin, and after several hours more her eyes finally opened.

“Mal?” she croaked.

“Yeah,” said Mal, too tired for anything more.

Evie blinked, and winced. “I’m sorry,” she said, quietly.”

Mal replaced the cloth on her head with a new, colder one. “Don’t be,” she said.

“You should have let me go.”

She refused to admit the pain that it sent through her chest, or the way that she wanted to clutch at Evie’s hand. “Of course not,” she said, voice measured. “You’re good at your job. It would take far too much to train somebody else now.”

“You’d have to invade… a whole other Kingdom.” Evie’s eyelids were already fluttering closed again, but this time Mal could see that it was tiredness.

Carefully, she reached out and brushed some of the sweat-damp hair off Evie’s forehead. “I don’t think we’d ever find a replacement for you,” she whispered.

  
  
  
  
  


When Evie first got properly out of bed, she had just about finished dressing when she tried to swat away a fly and gold sparks shot from her fingers. She yelped, then stared at her fingers in clear horror, as even Mal looked on in surprise.

“Did you do that?” said Evie, looking over at Mal almost desperately. “Was that you?”

“No.”

Evie paused, breathing fast, and then snapped her fingers. Once again, gold sparks flew from them, and Mal crossed the room in great strides to take her hands.

She let her magic reached out, until she felt it swell in her eyes and make them flash green. And there, right on the edge of her awareness, she could feel the creeping tendrils of other,  _ human _ , magic.

“You do have magic,” she breathed.

“What? No.” Evie shook her head, looking bashful and, beneath it all, a little humiliated. “I don’t have magic. My mother told me so.”

“I can feel it,” said Mal. She turned their hands so that they were palm-to-palm, and slowly drew them apart. Magic formed delicate filaments in the air between their skin, green from Mal, golden from Evie. “It’s… weak. Suppressed. But it’s there.”

“Suppressed?”

Mal frowned. “I have an idea of who we could ask. Stay here. Eat,” she added, with a wave to the tray of food she had told Carlos to bring up. “I need to ask someone about this.” She curled her hand down again, and the magic broke apart between them. It left a sort of hollowness behind. Evie looked uncertain, almost afraid, but Mal patted her on the shoulder in what she hoped would seem like a show of solidarity. “I’ll be back soon.”

She stormed straight down to the dungeons, conjuring to her hand the very truth potion that Evie had helped her to make. It seemed appropriate.

Within no time at all, she returned to her chambers torn between fury and pride, glad that she had discovered what had happened but at the same time angry that it had happened at all. Evie looked up as Mal all but slammed open the door, but Mal whirled to close it more softly and leant both hands against it.

“Mal?” said Evie. Mal could not remember quite when she had stopped saying ‘my Lord’ in private, but it did not much matter now.

“You’ve always had magic,” Mal said. Evie put down her spoon, and looked at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. Peeling upright again, Mal crossed, and took hold of Evie’s hands in turn to guide her to her feet. “Your mother was draining it from you, using it as her own.”

Evie paled; she knew that her mother stilled lived in a cell in the dungeons, albeit one that had been made comfortable enough to live in for some years. “You spoke to the my mother,” she said.

“I did.” Mal squeezed Evie’s hands. “But her spell is broken now.  _ That _ was why Anxelin’s hair would not stop your fever; it was not illness at all. It was your magic, reasserting itself.”

“I don’t know how to use magic!” Evie protested. “I just… I just know how to cook and clean and dance and write nice letters. I don’t know how-”

“Then I will teach you,” said Mal firmly. Evie looked astonished. “I learned magic as I learned to speak, to walk.”

“I can’t ask that of you. You’re the Lord, heir to Lord Maleficent.”

“And you already make more time in my day. I will only be using that, and consider it an investment beside.” Mal tilted her chin haughtily. “If anyone complains, I shall point out that having a handmaiden who knows magic will be even more useful.”

Evie’s face fell, just a fraction. When they had first met, Mal would not have noticed, but then again when Evie had first come to the Keep she had been sad most of the time besides. “Of course,” she said.

Mal winked. “Always have a backup explanation for your real reasons,” she said.

When Evie smiled, it was probably the most stunning thing that she had ever seen.


	3. Chapter 3

Evie learnt quickly; it helped, of course, that she already knew the ingredients and spells by heart. She said that learning magic was like learning to dance; Mal had always compared it to learning to fight, but she supposed that she did not have dancing for comparison anyway. From what Evie described - the balance, the control of one’s body, the careful breath - there were more than a few similarities anyway.

The first thing that Mal taught her was a simple shield spell; she told Evie that it was because it was easy, but if she were honest with herself she was glad that Evie had one more layer of protection.

For a while, none of her mother’s councilmen or advisors seemed to even notice; when they did, Mal shut them down in a few sentences, as she had learnt how to when she was still a child. She did notice, though, the way that her mother’s eyes lingered on her as she did so. Maleficent did not say anything, but Mal got the sense that she had done  _ something _ of which her mother disapproved. She just was not sure what.

Nothing was forthcoming, so Mal went about her plans. She trained her sword with the knights, her magic with her mother or by herself, and taught Jay and Evie what was appropriate from each of them.

Ser Harry of the Hook, a curve of land on the western coast which Maleficent had conquered long before Mal had even been born, was the first to fracture the peace that had taken hold of the Keep for the past months. While Maleficent concentrated on consolidating her hold on Erthal, some of her younger knights had found themselves restless, especially those who had older siblings who were in line to inherit. Harry, third child of Ser James of the Hook, would have nothing after his two sisters had staked their claims.

Boredom often turned to mischief, and even Mal could not keep all of them busy and practising. Perhaps it should not surprise her to be walking up the stairs to her chamber - she had left her best sword there, and it was enchanted against being summoned - to find that Harry had backed Evie into a corner, and was leaning over her with something close to a leer on his face.

“-pretty girl,” Mal caught him saying. “Dress like that, it’s clear what you want.”

“I’m not-” Evie started to say, when Harry reached forward, clearly going to grope her breast.

Anger flashed in Mal’s eyes, and she heard herself growl, but Evie was quicker. In a flurry of gold, the shield spell swirled into being in front of her, and Harry’s hand was knocked away with crack. Anger contorted his features, and he reached for the hook that hung from his belt; it was enchanted to cut through simple spells, and though he did not wear it permanently as did his father, he still carried one and was quite capable of wielding it.

The anger burned beneath her skin. Before she knew it, her lips had parted, and she felt the heat as a distant impression and tasted the bitterness of the flame as it blossomed from her lips. Green fire licked up the stairs, and with a shriek Ser Harry threw himself aside, further up the staircase, while Evie looked in wonder at the flames that bloomed against her shield spell.

Then the fire ended, and Mal fought the urge to cough and to spit against the taste of soot in her mouth. “ _You_ ,” she snarled, instead.

Ser Harry’s face was white, and he lay sprawled on the stone steps with the eyes of a mouse before a snake as Mal advanced upon him. “M- my Lord,” he stammered. “I know… she is  _ your _ handmaiden…”

“She is  _ her own _ ,” Mal snarled, and with a whip of magic snapped the hook from his side into her hand. Fire licked from her fingers, and she barely felt the molten metal that dripped down, rolled across her skin and fell hissing to the floor. “And you would do well to remember it.”

  
  
  
  
  


It was the first time that she had been able to breathe fire at all. Her mother had alternately berated and patronised her for nearing adulthood without managing “so simple” a feat, before finally writing it off as Mal’s weak half-human blood impeding her. Once she had managed it once, Mal made sure to practice regularly, in the deepest and most cavernous of the dungeons beneath the castle. 

Soon enough she could control the power and the colour of the flames, sending them licking across the walls or blazing so furiously that they seemed to suck the air in the room. Afterwards, streaming with sweat and marked with soot, she would return elated to her chambers where Evie always had the sense to have a bath standing ready.

As Maleficent geared herself for battle again, this time against the Enchanted Woods which would bring them to the very borders of Auradon, the castle oriented itself for war again. Gone were formal meals and parade armour; Mal wore her ordinary plate or maille, trained from sunrise to sunset, and sat cross-legged on her bed to share an evening meal with Evie. She knew that Evie, in turn, was handling with ever-increasing familiarity and skill correspondence with Mal’s network of spies and informants. Although Mal had done well enough with them, it seemed that Evie was even better, able to coax from them information that they had not even realised they knew.

“Lord Freddie writes from the Orleans Bayou,” said Evie, lying propped on one elbow across Mal’s bed and carefully spreading honey on her thick slice of bread. “She had agents from the Enchanted Woods found in her city and executed. Very quiet. She doesn’t want anyone to see it as a potential weakness.”

Mal snorted. “She caught them. That is strength.”

“They had managed to infiltrate her city in the first place.” Evie looked over at Mal, dark eyes serious. “You must be careful. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

“You handle the spies,” said Mal. “I’ll handle the ‘anything’. Another strawberry?” she nodded to the bowl.

“I’m amazed you offered,” Evie teased. She knew how much Mal adored them. But she took one all the same, the juices staining her lips an even brighter red.

  
  
  
  
  


It took months from the flame to the wing. That was how Mal thought of it; she had found the flame in her belly, knew that she had steel in her teeth, but it was as if the shape of the dragon that she could feel in her chest was still small and curled, and she could not force it outwards to wrap beyond her human form. The more angry she became, the harder it seemed, as if the dragon had become its own stone egg beside her heart; even as her fire lashed out more furious than ever, it seemed to do no good.

In response, she fought harder in her sparring, leaving more than one of the knights in need of medical attention as she pummelled them to the ground. She rode like a fury, heedless of her own safety, hoping that the feel of the air whipping at her face would wake something within her, something which remembered how to fly.

After another rough sparring session, she limped to her room and all but collapsed into her bed, and even a hot bath could not draw the pain from her skin. When she pulled on a shirt, wincing with every shift of her muscles, Evie chivvied her to bed and had her sit, the feather mattress a luxury but a needed one with how sore her body had become.

“Stay still,” said Evie. She gathered up Mal’s hair and pinned it into place with one stick, something which Mal had still not managed to emulate, and carefully brushed small stray hairs off her shoulders. Then her hands closed around Mal’s shoulders and squeezed; Mal hissed, and went to pull away, but then the heels of her hands pressed into Mal’s muscles and it turned to a low groan instead.

Evie’s hands dug into Mal’s painful muscles, like a dull ache in its own right that somehow loosened up the knots beneath her skin, soothing them out. Mal’s eyes fell closed as the kneading continued across her shoulders, pushing and squeezing, something she had not experienced before beyond pinching her own sore muscles in the vague hope of squeezing some of the pain out of them. It was nothing like this, though, and she felt the pain bleeding out beneath Evie’s hands.

“What  _ is _ that?” said Mal, once she had the presence of mind to speak again. She still felt all but ready to fall asleep beneath Evie’s hands, the sharp twists and aches turned to a dull heat that was such an improvement it was almost soothing in its own right.

“It’s a massage,” Evie said, half-laughing. “Haven’t you ever…”

Her voice became serious, and her hands stilled. As Mal looked up again, more than a little annoyed at the interruption, Evie leant sideways to peer around and meet her eyes.

“Have you never heard of a massage before?”

“I think I heard of it once,” Mal said. “A while ago.” She waved vaguely. “I didn’t know it felt like this.”

“It’s supposed to be good for relaxation,” Evie said. She straightened up, and to Mal’s intense pleasure started up the massaging again. The heel of her hand dug into Mal’s back, seeking out tensions and tight points, and Mal thought that she might have never felt so good. “My mother thought that they kept wrinkles away… I don’t know about that. But it helped when my feet ached from dancing, or my hand from writing perfectly…”

“You’re very good at it.”

“You’re only saying that because you’ve got no comparison,” said Evie, and the joking tone was not quite dedicated enough for Mal to be certain that Evie really was teasing.

Mal stretched her neck to the side, and felt that there was more give in her muscles there already. “I’m not,” she said. “This really is - oh…” she broke off into another groan as Evie found a particularly sore point.

“I’ve got some cream that makes bruises fade more quickly,” said Evie. “Unless… unless you use magic, of course…” she caught herself.

“My mother doesn’t believe in healing magic,” said Mal.  _ Only the violent sort _ . “If you’re bad enough to sustain the wound, you should suffer it.”

“Don’t worry,” said Evie. “Creams don’t count anyway. And besides,” she did something with her fingers that made Mal feel ready to melt. “It can be just between us.”

It felt strange, having someone that she actually trusted. But Mal was finding that it did not make her feel weak at all; if anything, it made her feel stronger than ever.


	4. Chapter 4

Spring rolled around, and the weather was prime for battle again. Mal rode at the head of her mother’s army, on a fine black horse, her purple-enamelled armour swapped out for sturdier fire-purpled plate and a helm in the shape of a snarling dragon. When she drew her sword, it licked with green flame, and her magically-enhanced battle-cry carried across the field.

Evie had not wanted her to fight. Part if it, Mal understood; battle was bloody and dangerous and ugly, and it would not be Mal’s first choice of place either. She had offered single combat against a champion of the Enchanted Woods not just because she knew that she would win, but because it would save the cost in gold and blood that battle always bought. But the Enchanted Woods knew how good Mal really was, though her seventeenth birthday had not yet arrived, and had refused.

Maleficent might have had her dragon form, might have been able to call upon the treemen and the powers of the fae to rain down upon their enemy, but they responded with fire and with magic of their own, sorcerers turning aside roots that would have tripped them, burning up poisoned darts that would have felled their men. Upon her horse, Mal cut through the men that dared to approach her, sword still burning, until her horse was cut from under her and she was thrown to the ground.

She was lucky, thrown clear enough to not be crushed, and rolled to her feet in one easy movement. A mace crashed down upon her shield, hard enough to jar her bones, but she responded with a bloom of fire from her lips that left the plate-clad knight in question screaming and writhing as he boiled within his metal prison.

It was harder to tell, from the ground, how battle went. Blood and mud churned up the field beneath their feet, and wounded men stumbled from the field while the dead lay where they had fallen. The bodies of horses were too heavy to consider moving, and their thrashing feet tore up the earth more, beside striking more than one fighter foolish enough to get to close. All that Mal could do was grit her teeth, and fight, and focus on a spear’s reach around her.

She lost count of how many knights she fought, how many foot soldiers she brushed aside as below her care. Her fight was not with them; it was with the leaders of the army. Queen Gothel had not come to the field, hiding behind her fighters, but if her banner was cut down and her champion defeated then the battle would end all the same.

With screams of rage and plumes of fire, Mal cut her way through the lines, until she found Lord Clay of Clayton, distinctive in his armour with its gorilla-faced helm. She called to him across the fighting, magic still accentuating her battle-hoarse voice, and as he wheeled his horse about to face her she raised her sword and shield both in preparation.

This was what she had trained for. The sword and the horse and the fight held no fear for her, never had, and she felt a wicked thrill as she held her ground just long enough before lashing out with her magic; not at the horse, nor the rider, knowing they would be protected, but at the very ground beneath them. Thorns as long as swords thrust from the ground, carried on briars that erupted upwards so fast that the very air seemed to scream. Lord Clay’s horse was cut from under him, and he was thrown to the ground; the horse screamed as its belly was ripped asunder, and with a snap of her fingers Mal broke its neck to stop its thrashing and its noise.

Lord Clay quickly rolled upright; he wielded a two-handed longsword to Mal’s bastard blade, but was just as muddied and blooded from the battle as was she. He shouted something back, but Mal could not make it out above the din of steel and shouting, Clay’s voice without magic to strengthen it. Rather than try to seek some scrap of words, she attacked.

Their blades clashed, and sparks of magic flew in the air, Mal’s power jabbing and seeking out any weakness in whatever protection had been cast over Lord Clay. But it could not find it; the magic was old, and more experienced than her own. She cast aside her shield, knowing it was not suited to this fight, and wielded her sword two-handed in return, nimble and dodging in her armour, wearing out Lord Clay with his heavier, slower fighting style. It was still exhausting, in full plate and beneath the burning sun, but she knew that she was fresher than him, could see it in the slightest droop of his sword and slowing of his step.

When her blade struck home, it punched straight through the metal of his helm, shearing through bone and brain to cut out of the back as well. Swearing in ancient tongues, Mal felt her sword dragged to the ground with his collapsing corpse, and set her foot against his shoulder as she tried to pull it loose again.

She did not see the blade that sank in beneath her armpit, although she felt the blaze of pain that struck her. It was worse than any blade alone should have been, as if liquid fire was coursing through her veins, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out as her legs gave way beneath her. If she screamed, she knew that it would be heard across the field, and that was the last thing that she would do to her men. She tried to move her arm, but the slightest movement made her vision turn red and her mouth fill with blood, and as the pain spread out across her skin all that she could do was fight back her scream until the world turned black.

  
  
  
  
  


When she awoke, there was no way to stop the screaming. At least her helm was gone, the enchantments on it ended; the fabric that touched her skin was like knives digging into her flesh, and she screamed and writhed in a desperate attempt to escape the agony that was in her own bones.

Poison. It had to be poison. It was like molten metal dissolving her skin, like each of her bones had been set alight. Her throat cracked with her screams, but she could not hold them back, and she thrashed against the gentle hands that touched her, that seemed ice-cold against the burning pain.

She thought that she saw Evie, through the haze of pain, but she was not even sure. All the same, she begged Evie to kill her, to release her from the all-consuming pain. She screamed until her voice gave way, until she hacked up blood and had to be turned on her side so that she would not choke on it. She screamed until she fell unconscious once again, and could only feel relief as the dark began to consume her.

It became very hard to breathe. It was like there was a leaden weight on her chest, stopping each rise of her ribs. Her eyes were too heavy to open. There were sounds, dim and distant, but they were garbled and dulled. The words  _ faebane root _ cut through; its poison was fatal to those of pure fae blood. Perhaps, Mal thought, albeit slowly and with great difficulty, her human father had saved her this time instead.

When she heard Evie’s voice, she wanted to reach out, to open her eyes, but it was still taking all of her strength just to breathe, and to understand the words that she heard. Evie washed the wound with something that stung like ice and made Mal’s heart race in her chest, but she said that it was snowstone dissolved in milk, a cure so old that the book she had found it in had been crumbling beneath her fingers to read.

Her hands shook as she bathed the wound, and Mal felt the fire recede, if only a fraction. It felt like hope, and Mal clung to it.

“I’m so sorry, Mal,” Evie said. She took Mal’s hand, twining her fingers together. If anything, she sounded more exhausted than Mal felt; Mal’s nerves still howled with pain, and whenever she was conscious she was not able to sleep. “Maybe it’s selfish… but I couldn’t give up on you. I couldn’t just let you go, I-” her voice cracked.

“I feel more like I’m  _ worth _ something as your handmaiden than I ever did as a princess. All that my mother wanted was a pretty face to sell to the highest bidder, and that’s all that she told me I should be… and then you told me that I could be something else. I would sooner be your servant than the Queen that my mother wanted to make of me.”

Evie lifted their hands, and Mal felt a soft pressure on her knuckles. It took her a moment to realise that it might well have been a kiss.

“You’re so smart, Mal,” she said, “and so strong, and you will make such an amazing lord. This land deserves you.” Her voice became so soft that it was barely audible. “And I need you.”

  
  
  
  
  


It took her days to be able to move again, to willingly open her eyes and even show that she could hear what passed around her.

“You gave us all a scare,” said Jay, his usual bright smile looking more fragile than usual, shadows beneath his eyes. It had been him that had found her collapsed body, realised that she was still alive, and defended her until the battle had ended. Him that carried her back to her tent. Carlos that had found the ingredients that Evie needed to save her life and Evie, wonderful Evie, who had managed to save her at all.

“Thought I’d keep you on your toes,” Mal replied, trying for her usual smirk. She was not sure how successful she was. All three of them looked exhausted, and although there were no mirrors in her tent she doubted that she could be that much better.

Carlos smiled, though it was thin. “We’re just glad you’re all right.”

“Takes more than that to keep me down.”

“Your mother sent a raven,” said Evie. “She… acknowledged that you were well. I think she worried that the faebane root would be fatal.”

For fae, it was. For humans touched by fae, with their blessing or a meeting with their magic, it was supposed to be bad enough. Mal had little doubt that her father’s blood had been what had truly saved her, and knew as well that her mother would hate her all over again for it. The reminder that Maleficent’s daughter carried the blight of human blood; no matter what she did, she would never be what her mother hoped.

Mal turned her face away, unable to face any of the others for a moment, and jumped when Evie’s hand came to rest on her shoulder.

“She’ll be busy dealing with Queen Gothel,” said Mal quickly. “It would have been a waste of time to deal with me. Who has been handling the clear-up of the battlefield?”

“Ser Helga of Sinclair,” Jay offered. “But we’re almost done. You were one of the worst injured to have survived.”

“Anxelin and Ruby are good,” said Mal. They would not have been able to assist with faebane, its power too deep in magic for either of them to be able to help. But Princess Rapunzel had made her deal with Lord Maleficent for the sake of her daughters more than for herself, and they had both agreed to lend their services for short periods of time as they were need.

Mal levered herself upright, muscles feeling as if they were grating over her bones. It was still a vast improvement over what she had felt before, though; she would take it.

“How do you feel?” said Evie.

“Like I need a massage,” Mal answered dryly. Evie laughed, the sound good to hear after fear having been etched into her voice for too long, and even Mal chuckled at the look of bewilderment on the faces of the two boys in front of them.


	5. Chapter 5

King Ben of Auradon was crowned on his birthday, and Maleficent chose to strike not long after. Not with battle, but with politics, hoping that while he was still young and inexperienced a bargain could be struck that would benefit their kingdom more.

Ben agreed, but on the condition that he be able to meet with Mal as part of the negotiations. At first, her mother was wary, suspecting that a plot was being hatched to kill her champion and heir, to leave their kingdom with one less defence. But King Ben was implacable and unimpeachable, and finally Maleficent agreed to it, with strict and extensive instructions on how Mal was to carry herself and what she was to say.

Nothing had been said of how close she had come to death. There had never seemed to be relief in Maleficent’s eyes that her daughter had survived.

Auradon was bright and sunny and full of magic, and the castle at which King Ben agreed to meet them was made of pink and white marble and seemed to become part of the very clouds. Maleficent sneered at it; Mal had to admit that it had its own beauty, albeit one that she feared would not have the strength to bear too many attacks.

King Ben himself was young; Mal had known that, of course, that he was only her age, but it still seemed strange to meet him face-to-face and see his beardless chin and the crown seeming too large on his head. He was golden-haired and warm-eyed, and greeted them with what seemed like genuine care. He even knew Evie’s name, and welcomed her as well; Mal saw her mother’s eyes flash green with anger.

For the first day on which they were to meet at the negotiating table, Mal had expected to wear the best of her doublets, purple velvet embroidered with the black and silver dragon of their kingdom, and a ceremonial sword at her hip. Once she had risen and bathed, however, she was confused when Evie coaxed her hair into some piled-up style with soft curls beside her cheeks, and then produced a gown that seemed to be all ruffles and lace, soft and feminine despite the flaring collar that provided some structure around her face. Just looking at it made her feel exposed and vulnerable; it might be possible to hide platemail legs beneath it, but that would be all.

“I’m not wearing that,” she said.

There was a glitter in Evie’s eyes. “Trust me,” she said, and Mal’s heart softened. “In this? Everyone will underestimate you. Nobody will ever guess how dangerous you are.”

In a heartbeat, she understood. Every spy that Evie had come to deal with, every letter that she had written, every time that she had stood at Mal’s shoulder and offered quiet advice on some piece of work or another. As a handmaiden, she had come to often be underestimated.

And she liked it.

A slow, lazy smile spread over Mal’s face, and she turned back to the dress with a fresh pair of eyes. Soft, feminine, still purple but lighter. It would make her look inexperienced, fresh-faced.  _ Young _ .

“Evie,” she said. “You are a genius.” The effusive words put a smile on Evie’s face, lips curling and eyes lighting up, but Mal could not help turning to look deeply into her eyes. “And I promise you: I will  _ never _ underestimate you.”

  
  
  
  
  


King Ben of Auradon wanted peace. Not just a truce, but peace, in such a way that it might benefit both of their Kingdoms. He explained that some of the Kingdoms which Mal’s mother had taken were benefitting from the rule, the organisation and the freedom from previous petty rulers, but some of them had been damaged when they had been taken. There was compassion in his voice, in the gentle gestures of his hands and the way that his eyes softened as he spoke, and Mal was quite taken aback by it. It was something that she had been told was unacceptable for a ruler, and yet Ben wore it well, and made it clear that he valued his Kingdom above all else.

Afterwards, Maleficent demanded to know what Mal had heard and said, what she had learnt. Mercifully, Mal had time to change out of the dress again before her mother appeared at her chambers, but she doubted that it would be long before Maleficent found out anyway. She had so many spies, after all.

It grated, worse than it ever had before. It  _ hurt _ , even, to see how her mother used her as a tool, caring more about what she could use than what she had experienced. Before she knew it, she had lied to her mother, played down what Ben had said and made the meeting sound cooler and less informative than it had truly been.

She was not sure what it was that broke her, but something had.

It was Evie who found her, sitting on the castle roof looking out over the town below and the city beyond that. Fires sparked in the darkness, but it did nothing to dull the dazzle of stars above them.

“I thought you might be up here,” said Evie, quietly. She sat beside Mal on the windswept parapet, the air cool and refreshing. It smelled of forest, not of battle. Mal had not even realised how much she missed it. “Up near the sky.”

“We’re safe up here,” said Mal, and could tell from the way that Evie cocked her head that she was considering pointing out the vast drop beneath them. “From my mother. I’ve set up shield;” a flick of her fingers, and gossamer silver-white threads shimmered into view around them for a fraction of a second. “I’d feel if she tried to eavesdrop. She’d know that I had set the magic as well, but…” she shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter so much now. “Besides, she’s more distracted by the news that King Ben is betrothed to Princess Audrey. You can imagine how she feels about  _ that _ .”

From Evie’s snort, it was safe to say that she could well imagine. They sat so close together that their arms almost touched; Mal could have bowed her head to rest against it against Evie’s shoulder. A year ago, she would probably not have even had the urge, and certainly would not have acknowledged it.

“I’ve been thinking,” Mal continued. “About what you said.”

“When?” said Evie, only half teasing. “I say a lot, you know.”

“When I was poisoned with the faebane,” said Mal. Evie went quiet, colour draining from her face, and for a moment Mal thought that she might run but mercifully she did not. “I - I know I should have said something.” She bent her knees, and wrapped her arms around them. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself to feel this uncertain about things. “You said that you’d rather be a my handmaiden than your mother’s queen.” She could not look around, because if she looked then she would see for certain the tears that shone in Evie’s eyes, and she could not have faced that. “And Evie, I… I’d rather be your  _ anything _ than be my mother’s lord.”

She heard the hitch of Evie’s breath, and still did not look round,  _ could _ not look round. It ached to think that she did not know how to deal with even the feelings swirling in her own chest, let alone what Evie might be going through. And she  _ wanted _ to understand, to offer help if that was what Evie wanted, to know if Evie might want help at all. But all that she could feel was the vast uncertainty beneath her feet, like treading water without an island in sight.

“You’re already my everything,” Evie said, and from the shake of her voice she was definitely crying, or at least on the brink of it. 

Mal had to blink back her own tears. “You’ll stick with me, right? Whatever I say next?”

“Of course.”

It took several deep breaths before she could even bring herself to say the words. Without Evie, she knew, she would never even have dared to think them; just having one person, it seemed, could make all the difference, give her a courage that she did not even know she was lacking. But Evie was brave enough to say yes without even asking why.

“I’m going to challenge my mother,” said Mal. “For her throne, for her Kingdom. She worries about acquiring land, not keeping it. She wanted war with Auradon before she even thought of a reason why.”

Maleficent was decades on centuries old, powerful, Mal knew that. But she had grown arrogant, and no longer took to the battlefield herself. Some of her followers were truly loyal, but most were scared, or allied to Maleficent only because they thought it might give them some advantage. Mal was young, but strong, and she knew that she could sway them.

But Evie did not raise any of those objections.

“I’m with you,” she said, quietly.

Mal reached for Evie’s hand, and wound their fingers together. Finally, she gave in, and rested her head on Evie’s shoulder; she was not at all surprised when Evie leant back in return.

  
  
  
  
  


They sat on the roof for so long that the air turned cold around them, and the night became velvet-black. Mal held onto Evie’s hand, and even closed her eyes to smell the faint, pretty perfume that Evie made herself to wear. It suited her perfectly.

When the felt the swelling in her chest, she thought at first that it was only hope, or perhaps hope and love wreathed together. As it became uncomfortable against her ribs, though, Mal opened her eyes, feeling her magic rush in them. She disentangled herself from Evie, and got to her feet.

“Mal?” Evie looked concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Stand back,” said Mal, a tremble of excitement in her voice. When she gently clenched her fists, testing them, she felt the push of claws beneath her skin. She smiled, and caught Evie’s eyes. “I’m better than all right.”

She breathed into her dragon skin. Wings unfurled from her back, her throat grew and lengthened, fangs unsheathing into her mouth. Her skin became scales, spine grew its tail, and her nails became claws against the stone.

When she opened her eyes again, Evie was looking at her in wide-eyed awe, cheeks flushed and lips part. Mal felt herself filling out her own flesh; she was not monstrously huge, not yet, not when dragon forms grew and grew long after human bodies settled. But already she was larger than a horse or a bear, eye-to-eye with Evie, and she stretched out her neck to proffer her jaw.

Evie’s hand shook as she stroked Mal’s scaly cheek. “You’re beautiful,” she said, with amazement and disbelief in her voice, and at the same time sounding as if she was just confirming something she had known overlong. “Mal, you are so  _ beautiful _ .”

**Climb on my shoulders** , said Mal, the words passing straight from her mind to Evie’s. Evie gasped, and Mal tried to grin but found it more difficult with fangs and without lips.  **Not all will be able to hear me. Only the special ones.**

“I don’t - I don’t know how!” Evie laughed.

Mal bent her forelimbs, keeping her wings well back, and lowered her neck to make her shoulders easier to access. Evie glanced around them, as if expecting someone to burst from the shadows and apprehend them, then hitched up her skirts in an unladylike way and climbed on, settling her legs either side of Mal’s neck, her hands searching for purchase in the rough scales running down Mal’s spine.

**Hold on,** Mal advised.

She turned her eyes to the sky and, for the first time in her life, felt ready to fly.


End file.
